Debates of May 31st, 2016

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Is it is the pleasure of the House that the aforementioned questions be made orders for return and that they be tabled immediately?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Question No. 104

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

With regard to the $3.716 billion for large-scale capital projects that was reallocated from 2015-2016 to 2020-2021: (a) has the government earmarked this money for specific projects, and, if so, to which projects will this funding reallocation be applied; (b) for each project that had its funding reallocated to 2020-2021, what is the anticipated average annual inflation cost of each project for the next five years; (c) based on calculations from (b), how does the government anticipate that inflation costs will impact the government’s buying power; and (d) are additional funds being set aside in the fiscal framework to account for schedule slippage as a result of the reallocation of $3.716 billion?

(Return tabled)

Question No. 106

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

With regard to the upcoming agricultural policy framework replacing the current Growing Forward 2 framework, and the ongoing consultations being held in preparation of the agreement: (a) what information, including all the details of documents and correspondence, has the Minister of Agriculture, his staff, or the department of Agriculture and Agri-food Canada shared with, or received from, their provincial counterparts; (b) what information, including all the details of documents and correspondence, has been exchanged between the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Finance or their ministerial offices, and between the Department of Agriculture and Agri-food Canada and Finance Canada; and (c) what information, including the details of all documents and correspondence, has been exchanged between the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change or their ministerial offices, and between the Department of Agriculture and Agri-food Canada and the Department of Environment and Climate Change Canada?

(Return tabled)

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Criminal Code

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved that Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying), be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin today by acknowledging the contributions of all members of the House, in particular, the members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, for how they have approached our debate on Bill C-14.

It is clear that members from all parties have engaged closely with their constituents, members of other parties, and their own experiences to make thoughtful and genuine contributions to our country's conversation on medical assistance in dying. This is one of the most important issues that this Parliament will address.

Bill C-14 represents the government's policy choice to address medical assistance in dying, a choice that is fully informed by consultations with Canadians and experts and takes into account all the interests and values surrounding this matter.

When the Carter decision came down in February 2015, one debate ended and another began. It was no longer a question of whether Canada would permit medical assistance in dying, but rather it was about how our country would do it.

Bill C-14 would create a statutory framework for medical assistance in dying that considers the perspectives of those who may wish to access it; those who are concerned about its consequences, including vulnerable persons who could be put at risk by the legalization of this practice; and those who may be asked to provide the assistance.

While the Carter decision told us that an absolute prohibition in the former law went too far, it did not tell us how medical assistance in dying should be implemented. The Supreme Court of Canada acknowledged that the issue “involves complex issues of social policy and a number of competing societal values”. The court stated that it:

emphasized that there may be a number of possible solutions to a particular social problem, and suggested that a “complex regulatory response” to a social ill will garner a high degree of deference.

The challenge facing Parliament is about setting new boundaries. Who should be eligible for medical assistance in dying; what safeguards should be required; how will it be monitored; and what issues require more study?

A proposed law that answers these questions must comply with the charter, but that does not require replicating the Carter decision. The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized that the relationship between the courts and Parliament should be one of dialogue. Just as Parliament must respect the court's ruling, so too must the court respect Parliament's determination of how to craft a statutory scheme in response to the court's judgment.

It is helpful to know how this dialogue has played out in previous instances. For example, in R. v. O'Connor, a 1995 charter challenge in a sexual assault case, the Supreme Court mandated the disclosure of therapeutic records in the Crown's possession and set out a common law procedure for the production of these records.

In response, Parliament enacted a statutory disclosure regime that differed in significant ways from the court's approach. The court upheld the constitutionality of that statutory regime, noting that it could not be presumed, just because Parliament's scheme looked different from what the court had envisioned, that it was unconstitutional.

Instead, there is this dialogue between the legislative branch and the courts. The court can provide the general parameters for a response, but it is for Parliament to craft the regime. Details of that regime matter because they necessarily engage fundamental choices of our rights and values and reconciling the tensions that sometimes exist between them.

In developing a response to the Carter decision, the government was called on to simultaneously promote autonomy, protect the vulnerable, affirm life, prevent suicide, support persons with disabilities, respect freedom of conscience, and fully consider many other valuable interests. As we went about this, we remained mindful of our constitutional framework and the divided jurisdiction between Parliament and the provinces and territories.

In weighing these values and making these policy choices, we were not alone. In the past number of months the national conversation on medical assistance in dying has been rich and fulsome, and no doubt it will continue.

Following the introduction of Bill C-14, the relevant standing committees of Parliament, including the justice and human rights committee and the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee, which conducted the pre-study of the bill, have heard diverse perspectives from stakeholders and experts on all aspects of medical assistance in dying. Bill C-14 strikes a balance regarding eligibility and safeguards, as well as setting out what the federal law should do and what should be left to the provinces and territories to regulate.

Not everyone agrees with these policy choices. Still, I am confident that the decisions fall squarely within the range of alternatives that are legally open to Parliament to adopt. It would have been easy for the government to cut and paste the language from the court's decision into a new federal statute, but such an approach would have meant ignoring all the consultations and evidence that I have just referenced. It would also have fallen far short of developing a complex regulatory regime to balance competing interests, which the court said was the task of Parliament to craft and not the courts.

That evidence, presented over the past year, confirms that medical assistance in dying may pose risks to the vulnerable, even in circumstances where there is a general consensus that the person should be eligible for the procedure. That is why the bill provides for significant procedural safeguards, even when all of the eligibility criteria are met. This is why the bill would also put in place the necessary legal framework to monitor how medical assistance in dying is implemented in Canada.

In terms of eligibility, the policy choice made by the government was to focus on persons who are in an advanced state of irreversible decline and whose natural deaths have become reasonably foreseeable.

Recall that medical assistance in dying is exceptional because, from a criminal law perspective, it is a situation where one person actively and knowingly participates in the death of another. We criminalize and strongly condemn this conduct in all other circumstances. The only place in our criminal law where this conduct is justified is in self-defence, where individuals are permitted to take a life but only in order to save their own life or someone else's. While medical assistance in dying has medical and health law aspects to it, we cannot lose sight of this dimension either, because it is the criminal law power that is the primary source of Parliament's jurisdiction to address this issue, and it was the criminal law that, before the Carter decision, stood in the way of medical assistance in dying.

Having given careful consideration to the risks that may be posed when anyone, even a physician or nurse practitioner, is permitted to end another person's life, the balance reflected in Bill C-14 is that medical assistance in dying should be a choice for Canadians about how they die, so that they may have access to a peaceful passing. The bill would create a complex regulatory regime to respect this choice and ensure it is exercised in a voluntary and fully informed manner. Equally, the criteria ensure that, for Canadians who are not declining toward death, the focus of medicine remains on improving life, not ending it.

We also recognize that there are those who believe that the law should permit access to medical assistance in dying in other situations. The government heard these concerns loudly and clearly. The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights amended the bill to ensure that one or more independent reviews be initiated within six months of the bill receiving royal assent to further examine issues around the eligibility for mature minors, advance requests, and requests where a mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition.

We welcome this amendment and want to emphasize that we will remain open-minded to the evidence that these reviews gather and as Canadian data begins to be generated on how medical assistance in dying is actually working.

The decision to study these three issues further is supported by people who work with patients day in and day out in these three areas, who have been some of the most prominent voices calling for Parliament to proceed with caution.

With respect to mature minors, the Canadian Paediatric Society, represented by Dawn Davies, testified before the Senate committee that there “is simply not enough information to reach an enlightened decision” on this matter and that “It is appropriate that the first iteration of legislation on physician-assisted death does not include...minors”.

She also stated that there have not been sufficient consultations on this issue. The usual capacity and assessment processes, which Bill C-14 supports as appropriate for adults, may not be the right approach for mature minors. We need to consider this issue further.

Advance requests is another area where additional evidence is needed. We have heard many times over the past year that advance requests are likely to be sought in circumstances where persons are suffering from diseases such as Alzheimer's or dementia, but even the Alzheimer Society of Canada has stated in its public position paper that medical assistance in dying should only be possible when a person is competent at the time the assistance is administered. It says that advance requests not only pose risks to vulnerable patients, but they could also contribute to false stereotypes, undermining its message that it is possible to live well with this disease. Further study on this issue is the right policy.

On mental illness as a sole condition motivating a request for assisted dying, it is not surprising that reputable individuals and organizations, including the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Mental Health Commission of Canada, support further study before legislating in this area. Moving forward in this way does not deny the suffering that these illnesses can cause. Rather, it ensures that we get it right and protect some of the most vulnerable and stigmatized persons in our society. For these reasons, I believe that Bill C-14 represents the right policy choices to answer the difficult questions the Supreme Court of Canada left for us as parliamentarians to resolve for 36 million Canadians.

I will now turn to the legal considerations, which play a crucial role in this seminal piece of legislation.

A consistent area of discussion has been around whether Bill C-14 is constitutional. As the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, I am of the firm opinion that the bill is consistent with the charter and is a justifiable response to the Carter decision.

Bill C-14's eligibility criteria directly respond to the Carter decision. They clarify the intended scope of eligibility, acknowledging the submission of the Canadian Medical Association, which represents 83,000 physicians who will, with nurse practitioners, be responsible for implementing and applying this law in their daily practice. This organization has stated that the language in the bill is a significant improvement over what it views, from a medical perspective, as the court's unworkable term “grievous and irremediable”.

What was the scope of the Carter decision? I appreciate that there are many differing interpretations of the decision, and I acknowledge that the Alberta Court of Appeal recently read Carter in a broad way, while some judges in the Superior Court of Ontario have read it more narrowly. I believe that the Carter decision was about the factual circumstances of that case. At the end of the day, Bill C-14 will be measured against the charter as a whole and not the Carter case. As the Alberta Court of Appeal recognized, “the interpretation and constitutionality of eventual legislation should obviously wait until the legislation has been enacted”.

Bill C-14 addresses both dimensions of section 7 of the charter, respect for autonomy and respect for life. The bill would strike a new balance between these interests through a comprehensive regulatory regime, which would receive deference from the courts. The proposed law would respect individual autonomy for persons who choose medical assistance in dying, but would do so in a careful manner that preserves other crucial objectives: promoting suicide prevention, preventing social stigma of life with a disability, and protecting society's most vulnerable persons from a risk of premature involuntary death.

While Bill C-14 requires that an eligible person be on a trajectory toward death, the flexibility purposefully built into the bill's criteria would allow medical practitioners to respond to a wide variety of medical circumstances, not just predictable diseases that are subject to fixed prognoses of life left to live.

Indeed, unlike some U.S. state regimes that require a specific prognosis, Bill C-14 does not require a strict relationship between the medical condition and the cause of the person's reasonably foreseeable death.

I do not agree with those who say that the Carter decision means that Parliament is constitutionally mandated to enact one of, if not the broadest, assisted dying regimes in the world, and that Parliament has little scope to consider other societal interests aside from autonomy. The court acknowledged that medically assisted death involved complex issues of social policy in a number of competing interests. In matters of this nature, the charter analysis takes into account the fact that there is no single manifestly correct balance of competing interests that are engaged. Deference will be shown, provided that Parliament's solution falls within the range of reasonable alternatives.

Bill C-14 is reasonable. It would provide people who are in a path towards death a choice that would respect their wish to die with dignity. Equally, it would limit medical assistance in dying to persons in these types of circumstances in order to prevent the normalization of suicide, protect vulnerable persons who were disproportionately at risk of inducement to suicide, and affirm the equal value of every person's life.

This balancing of interests addresses the inherent risks associated with permitting medical assistance in dying, and represents what the trial judge in Carter described as a “carefully- designed system imposing stringent limits that were scrupulously monitored and enforced”. Such a system is necessary because the suffering that can lead someone to request assisted dying does not just come from the condition; it also comes from how our society too often treats people with such conditions.

Under an approach where any serious medical condition is eligible, the law would be saying that an assisted death could be an acceptable treatment for a soldier with post traumatic stress disorder, a young person who suffered a spinal cord injury in an accident, or a survivor whose mind was haunted by memories of sexual abuse.

These are difficult but necessary situations to talk about, because cases like these are the unavoidable consequence of an assisted dying law where the only limit on eligibility is an individual's subjective experience of suffering.

As both the justice and human rights committee and the senate committee heard from several witnesses, the risk to vulnerable people, as well the crucial objectives of suicide prevention and affirming the value of the lives of all Canadians could be greatly increased unless eligibility was limited to persons who were approaching the end of their lives.

As I said, when Bill C-14 was introduced, assisted dying is a matter that touches us all and challenges us all. Divergent views on the bill remain, but we have a responsibility to act for all Canadians. The interim court approval process ends on June 6. If there is no legislation in place at that time, medical assistance in dying will lack a legal framework outside of the province of Quebec.

There is even uncertainty as to whether the court's remedy in Carter, if it came into force on June 6 in place of a statutory regime, would have the legal effect of completely striking down the existing criminal law that prohibits consensual killings and the aiding of suicides outside of an assisted dying context.

While most medical regulators have published interim guidelines, there would be no mandatory or consistent national safeguards. It could be possible, for example, for a physician to end a mature minor's life, depending on the province. Different jurisdictions require different numbers of witnesses, and some provide no waiting period at all.

Uncertainty around Carter parameters would persist and likely lead to inconsistent results in who would be found to be eligible, even between medical practitioners in the same jurisdictions.

We have a choice: To have a statutory framework in place with all of the national-level safeguards and protections that I have described, or having none. Bill C-14 reflects the kind of society we should aspire to be, one that respects individual autonomy and one that affirms that the lives of all Canadians have inherent value and are equally entitled to the protection of the law.

I call on all members of the House to support Bill C-14.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge the very difficult balancing act that the Minister of Justice has had deal with in crafting this very sensitive legislation. The one part that still gives me great cause for concern, and I heard this from 100% of the people in my riding, is that there should be very clear and specific language on the protection of the health conscience rights of our health care providers.

Last night, we turned down what I thought was a very reasoned amendment. I hope the minister could share, very clearly, with Canadians why the Liberals voted against what I and most Canadians believed to absolutely critical.

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the conscience rights of medical practitioners is of the utmost importance. In every aspect of the consideration of this legislation, we have taken that into account.

I recognize the work of the justice and human rights committee of the House of Commons, which considered substantive amendments and in fact voted in favour of 16 amendments, including having the conscience rights of medical practitioners in the preamble of the legislation. However, for greater certainty, it voted for an amendment to ensure the conscience rights of medical practitioners was in the body of the legislation. There is nothing in the legislation that would compel a medical practitioner to perform medical assistance in dying.

Beyond that, we and the Minister of Health are working in a concerted way with the provinces and territories to assist them in developing the complex regulatory regime that will be required. That is under way, and that conversation will continue.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I paid close attention to the minister's speech.

Over the past few weeks, every time we have had the rare opportunity to talk about this particularly important bill, the same issue has come up repeatedly: the Supreme Court's June 6 deadline. Now, even government MPs, including the Minister of Health, are starting to say that the June 6 deadline is hardly a sure thing. Leading senators have said so too.

I should point out that we are operating under time allocation, which means that only three members of my party will have a chance to debate this bill at third reading.

What seems to be the minister's priority right now? Meeting the June 6 deadline, which seems highly unlikely, or building the broadest possible consensus among members of the House, which would likely smooth the way in the Senate as well?

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first, there has been substantive debate on this topic. This has been a national conversation and it has been under way for many months.

I and the government have the utmost respect for the Supreme Court of Canada and the June 6 deadline that it has imposed. We are doing everything we can to ensure we meet that deadline. Certainly there are risks, but the risks are greater if we do not have a legal framework for medical assistance in dying in place by the Supreme Court of Canada's deadline.

If we do not have a legal framework in place, there would be no ability for an individual to apply to a superior court to seek an individual exemption. There would not be the substantive safeguards in place that the Supreme Court in the Carter instructed Parliament to put in place. As well, there would be no certainty for medical practitioners and access would remain uncertain for patients wishing to have medical assistance in dying. It would be irresponsible for us as parliamentarians not to do everything we can to ensure we meet the June 6 deadline.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister never answered my question. She invited us to debate the issue, but when there is a debate, we would expect a majority government to accept some amendments.

The minister referred to the Quebec legislation. Surely she knows that, as it is currently written, the Quebec law excludes all requests for assisted suicide and forces ineligible people to resort to hunger strikes.

Is the minister's bill also along those lines? Does she believe it is acceptable and humane for a person to have to go on a hunger strike to be able to access medical assistance in dying? How would this bill have made Kay Carter eligible to receive that assistance?

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in terms of amendments, 16 have been made to Bill C-14, which have strengthened the proposed legislation with respect to seeking to draw the balance between personal autonomy with protection of the vulnerable and ensuring that we do as much as we can to protect the conscience rights of medical practitioners.

I recognize the member's multiple submissions to the House on this legislation. I also recognize the tremendous experience of years of discussions that the province of Quebec has had with respect to putting in place its own laws.

With respect to Kay Carter, I am absolutely certain that Ms. Carter would qualify under the eligibility regime as presented in Bill C-14. We specifically ensured that we provided a broader definition around what grievous and irremediable meant and we put in place eligibility criteria that would ensure there would be flexibility in our regime and provide medical practitioners with the ability to engage with their patients. They are the most familiar with their patients and by virtue of that relationship can determine whether there is eligibility or not.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a question on behalf of one of my constituents who recognizes the efforts made to ensure that medical practitioners have the freedom of conscience to not participate in this process. My constituent wonders if that protection extends to the right not to refer somebody to someone who is prepared to permit the procedure to go ahead.

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have addressed the issue of conscience rights of medical practitioners by recognizing those rights in the preamble and within the body of our legislation. Also, I further acknowledged that the Minister of Health would be working with the provincial and territorial professional organizations to respect the rights of medical practitioners and to move away from an effective referral and put in place a system that would work with their provinces and territories, and the medical regulators to respect the individual choices of medical practitioners. In addition, we will work to put in place a system wherein we could provide information to those patients who are looking for medical assistance in dying, not imposing something on a medical practitioner. However, that is the relationship with the provincial regulators.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to acknowledge the work the justice minister and the committee have done on this legislation. I know how difficult this has been, given the timelines. I appreciate the amendments brought forward by the Conservative members on that committee and the fact that they have listened to the concerns of Canadians and have addressed some of them.

However, the one issue I have heard at the town halls and the feedback I have received from my constituents is on the framework for a strategy on palliative care, which is one of the recommendations of the joint committee study. There is no funding in the 2016 budget for palliative care. We tried to put an amendment through last night, which was voted down. What is the long-term plan for palliative care? Will there be funding and is this something to which the Liberals will commit?

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Mr. Speaker, certainly I would defer these very important questions to the Minister of Health. However, I know that in speaking and working with her throughout the course of the development of this legislation, in every town hall I have been at and every meeting I have had with organizations, individuals, or through the recommendations that have come out of the number of panels, palliative care has been a primary importance to Canadians. It is a primary importance to the Minister of Health, myself, and our government.

The Minister of Health has ensured and committed that while working with the provinces and territories in the renewal of the health accord, we will ensure there are provisions in place to ensure that every Canadian, no matter where one lives right across the country, has access to palliative care. The Minister of Health has made that commitment.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by asking for consent to share my time with the member for Cariboo—Prince George.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Does the hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove have the unanimous consent of the House to split his time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Agreed and so ordered.

The hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Minister of Justice for being here today to speak in the House and for sharing her perspective and the government's perspective on Bill C-14. I found her to be always available and very thoughtful, and I thank her for her involvement.

I have been honoured to be part of the joint committee that dealt with the bill starting in January. I was also part of the justice committee when Bill C-14 was sent there. As the minister said, the opinions on this issue of assisted suicide are very diverse. Within each of the parties it is very diverse. However, I want to thank all members of Parliament for being respectful and working together on this important issue.

We are dealing with this issue because of the Carter decision. The Supreme Court said in the Carter decision that this must be allowed. The Criminal Code will be amended, and it is up to Parliament to come up with safeguards, not that this is permitted. However, the Supreme Court decided that we are to create safeguards.

We have also heard that 84% of Canadians want this. However, that statement that we have often heard is a little misleading, because 84% of Canadians do support this under certain criteria, and that criteria is that the illness is terminal, and the person is suffering terribly and repeatedly asks to have assisted suicide to end their suffering. Therefore, it is important to remember that it is under certain conditions.

I have consulted with my constituents on this issue. I sent out a householder, and I was very thorough and non-partisan. The householder I sent out provided a background and laid out all the different issues that Parliament is having to deal with: conscience protection, palliative care, who can provide this service, should there be judicial oversight, should the cause of death be listed for data collection as assisted suicide or euthanasia, mature minors, and on and on.

I had response to this householder, and one week ago, I had our second town hall meeting on this. In both cases, we had a huge response from the constituents. Actually, we have had more of a response to this issue through emails, phone calls, letters, and responses to the householder. We have had more responses on this than on any other issue in the last 12 and a half years that I have been a member of Parliament. People are very engaged and understand what the issues are and the challenges that the House faces.

Again, I thank the Minister of Justice, but as a critique, I think the government could have approached this a little differently, instead of dominating the committee structures, instead of bringing in time allocation, and instead of saying no to all the amendments.

The minister spoke about the 16 amendments, which, of course, were Liberal amendments. Of the amendments, there was one that the Conservative Party and the NDP at committee agreed with, and that was on conscience protection. We asked that all physicians, health care professionals, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, or anybody who is a health care professional who does not want to be involved with this have the right to say no. However, the government turned down that amendment.

The fact is, the parliamentary secretaries in the committee talked to each of the members on that committee and told them that the Liberals were not going to support that. Then the parliamentary secretary of justice actually spoke at the committee and said that the government did not support amending like that.

As the Minister of Justice just said, the government is going to leave it to negotiating with the provinces, and download that responsibility to the provinces. However, what we are doing in Bill C-14 is amending the Criminal Code of Canada. Prior to the Carter decision, it was illegal to assist anybody in a suicide. It was legal to commit suicide but illegal to assist somebody. It was considered homicide if someone assisted somebody.

Under the Carter decision a physician can, under certain conditions, provide assistance in a suicide and euthanasia. That amendment to the Criminal Code also could be elaborated on to say that it would be a criminal offence to force health care professionals or any individuals through coercion or intimidation, to participate in the death of another individual against their will. That is what we suggested.

When Bill C-14 gets referred to the Senate it will have to deal with it. I believe the Senate will refer this legislation back to the House. It is going to refuse to accept Bill C-14 the way it is and it will provide proper conscience protection for physicians.

We heard from the Canadian Medical Association that 70% of physicians in Canada do not want to be a part of this. They do not want to be forced through coercion, intimidation, or threats that they will no longer be able to practise at this or that hospital if they do not participate.

In a National Post article called “'Killing' patients vs. 'doing their job': Sharp division of opinion on whether doctors should be required to assist in suicide”, a doctor says she has been practising medicine for 37 years. The family doctor has decided not to renew her medical licence in June of this year. Dr. Naylor has no desire to quit medicine but she says she is appalled at the thought of being forced to refer. Dr. Burke, who practises physical medicine and rehabilitation in Windsor Ontario, said he is renewing his medical licence in Michigan where assisted suicide is illegal.

I have heard this at town hall meetings across the country and at the two I had in my own community. A young medical student asked me if physicians were going to be forced to do this and I said that there is a good possibility because in Bill C-14 the government is leaving it up to the provinces. We have already heard that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario will require physicians to effectively refer, which means that a doctor must follow that person through the whole process to make sure he or she does get euthanized if that is what the individual requested. The doctor must participate.

Physicians across this country, like those I just mentioned, are going to refuse to participate, saying they are now of retirement age and will retire or will relocate to another jurisdiction where they will not be forced to be a part of this, which goes against their conscience. A shortage of physicians and nurses will create a medical emergency in Canada. We will have a shortage of physicians and nurses in Canada because they will be forced to participate in something that goes against their conscience.

The government has an opportunity to do the right thing. It refused to do it in the House so it will be left to the Senate. The Senate will decide and it will amend Bill C-14. It will come back to the House in an amended form. We do not know how long that will take but it is obvious that the June 6 deadline will not be met. I hope the government will play differently then and will co-operate with the Senate and not strike down its amendments.

It is better to have Bill C-14 than nothing but it does need to be amended. The government needs to be more open-minded and congenial and work within this parliamentary environment and come up with legislation that represents where Canadians are at on this issue, not where the government is at.